Curative Coma
by Light-Ace
Summary: For Day 3 of Faberry Week: Time Travel. Of all the things to be grateful for, Quinn never suspected a coma would make the list.


My head feels foggy, like it did after I woke up from having my wisdom teeth out. My thoughts are sluggish, and my body is refusing to respond.

After a bit – okay a lot – of struggling, I manage to pry my eyes open. A groan works its way out of my throat.

"Ah, you're awake," a voice says, though it sounds like it's coming from underwater. I blink heavily. Someone shifts into my line of vision, and my eyes struggle to focus on their face. When they finally do, I regret ever opening my eyes.

"Nice of you to join us, Little Quinn," an older but unmistakable me says with a grin.

Everything goes black again.

/

The next thing I know, my limp body's leaning back against something hard. I blink a few times and would rub my eyes if my arms would cooperate; they refuse to move and stay limp in my lap.

A hand tilts my chin up, and this time I'm not even shocked to see the older me frowning at me, forehead wrinkled as she studies me. "No sign of a concussion, so it must just be the stress of being pulled from your own time." She grimaces. "And the accident."

I frown. Accident? What accident?

Then it hits me, no pun intended, and I groan loudly. "I got hit by a fucking truck," I manage to slur out, and Older Me smirks at me.

"Yeah, you're fine," she says cheerily and releases my chin with a pat on my cheek. As I struggle to convince my neck muscles to support my head, I hear Older Me yell, "Rae! Little Quinn's awake, but the other one's still out cold!"

Wait, there was someone else here? I mange to lift my head enough that I can see someone slumped to my right, but before I can look, someone appears in the doorway and I find myself wishing I was back being hit by that truck.

"I'd ask where I am, but I think the better question is when," I deadpan as an older Rachel kneels in front of me and cups my cheeks to look worriedly at me.

Older Me has her arms crossed as she stands a few feet back from us. "March, 2027. Fifteen years in the future for you. And you're in New York. Rae's on Broadway."

A smile curls on my lips at the statement, and I mumble, "Told her so." Older Rachel grins and pulls me into a hug. My head flops limply onto her shoulder, and I distractedly register that she smells just as lovely as she did fifteen years earlier.

My muscles are beginning to cooperate again, so when Older Rachel pulls back, I twist my neck to see who's been pulled here with me. I'm not too surprised to see my Rachel slumped unconscious beside me.

And by my Rachel, I mean the Rachel from my time. Not, um, _my_ Rachel. If anything, she's Finn – despite how horrible the concept of owning a person sounds – and now my surprisingly good mood has been ruined by the very mention of his existence. I'm just going to stop thinking now.

Older Me grins at me, and I have a sneaking feeling she knows what I'm thinking. "I know because I was in your position fifteen years ago. Just like Rae knows what Little Rachel's thinking." She frowns. "It feels weird actually using the full name."

I give her a disbelieving look because really, _that's_ what she's choosing to focus on. Would getting me up to speed with what's going on here be too much to ask for?

"I'm not explaining everything twice and Little Rachel will be waking up soon, so we'll just explain whenever she's coherent."

Older Rachel gives me a sympathetic smile and then stands up and gives Older Me an admonishing look, who glances away, looking suitably abashed. "Excuse her," Rachel says, spinning Older Me around and pushing her toward the door. "She can be an ass sometimes. Go, you," she says, turning back to Older Me. "I can take care of these two while you go pick Alice and Charlie up."

I'm rather intrigued by their interactions, because I've never been this comfortable around anyone. Yeah, I'm close to Santana and Brittany, but not to this degree. Also, who in the hell are Alice and Charlie?

Older Me pouts for a moment before glancing up at me and the still unconscious Past Rachel and then proceeding to pull her Rachel into the hallway. I can hear them whispering, but it's too quiet for me to make out what they're saying.

After a minute, I hear Older Me chirp a goodbye before the sound of footsteps that quickly fade away. Older Rachel reappears in the doorway with what looks like a light blush on her face, and sure enough, when I raise an eyebrow, her cheeks flush bright red. Wonder what had happened in that hallway.

"Don't I have a job?" I ask curiously, because I can't find it in me to tease her.

"Of course," Rachel says with a sniff that I take to mean she's insulted on Older Me's behalf. She pulls a chair up across from me and gives me a scrutinizing look. "You didn't really figure out what you wanted to do until your sophomore year in college. You're a doctor."

I feel my eyes widen in surprise, and Rachel smiles at me in a way that sends off warning bells in the back of my mind. "Like, an actual doctor? Not a nurse?"

"Head of the Diagnostics department. You went in for surgery, but then Santana bought you all eight seasons of _House_ and there was no arguing with you then."

"I turned into Gregory House?" I deadpanned.

She smiled at me. "You're not that much of an ass, though you do tend to dress like him. More like Thirteen."

As I took a moment to let it sink in that I'd wound up a doctor – and a pretty good one, from what I'd heard – Older Rachel leaned forward to brush the younger one's cheek.

"She should be waking up soon," she mumbles. "She'll be inconsolable if she sees me. I'll wait outside while you tell her what's going on."

I glance sideways at my Rachel – screw it, I'm just gonna call her that, it's less confusing this way – and couldn't help but smile at the sight of her with her mouth hanging open.

"Why do I feel like you're throwing me to the wolves?" I ask, glancing back at Older Rachel, who smirks at me. "She's gonna flip out anyway."

The smirk I receive isn't comforting in the slightest. "Oh, I know," she says cheerily, striding quickly toward the door. "But when I was in her position, the older me left the room, and _you_ were the only one I would listen to when she came back. So good luck."

And with another unsettling smile, she walks out and shuts the door behind her, leaving me alone with an unconscious Rachel that's going to be an absolute joy to handle when she wakes, I just know it.

I sigh and shift so I'm cupping Rachel's face in my palms. "C'mon, Rachel," I mutter, rubbing her cheeks with the pads of my thumbs. "Wake up, Rach." Nothing. I sit back and rub my temple with the heel of my palm. Then I'm hit by an idea; I lean back in. "Rae, sweetie, Barbra Streisand's on the phone and walks to talk to you."

A hand almost smacks me in the face, but I manage to duck away in time to avoid it. Rachel sits up straight and looks around for a few seconds before she focuses on me; I'm grinning like a fool at her, but I don't care.

"That was mean," she says with a pout, and I chuckle and ruffle her hair affectionately. "Wait." And there it is; the smile drips off my face. There's a look of horror on her face as she points at me and squeaks, "You're in a coma!" She glances around. "This has to be a dream! I fell asleep at the hospital and now I'm dreaming!"

At the speed she's babbling, I really only got the first thing she said. I frown. "I'm in a coma?" I ask blankly, and she snaps out of her rambling to study me curiously.

"Yes, your brain was swelling, so they're keeping you in a medically-induced coma until the swelling goes down. You know, you look exactly like the real Quinn, minus the bruises."

I smile at her. "I am the real Quinn, but unless you want me to punch you to prove that you're not dreaming, you're just going to have to take my word for it."

She frowns at me. "Then what's going on?"

Oh, she's definitely not going to like this. I settle back a good foot away from her, bracing myself for her reaction. "We're in the future. I can only assume that you were touching me at the moment when I was pulled here, so you were brought along with me." She's frowning at me, but she hasn't exploded yet. Yet.

"Your fifteen year older self is outside in the hallway," I pause, listening, "_snickering_ at us, and Older Me went off somewhere. We're in New York City. You're on Broadway, and I'm a doctor."

Rachel blinks at me. "You're not kidding, are you?" She frowns. "But if I _was_ dreaming this, wouldn't you still say that?"

"Do you want me to punch you?" I deadpan. She suddenly looks stricken and shakes her head furiously. I smile.

She's quiet for a minute, but as soon as she opens her mouth, I hear a voice yell, "I'm back! And I brought the two demons with me!" Older Me's yell is followed by outraged roars from voices that I don't recognize.

Rachel glances at me, brow furrowed, but I'm already up and moving to open the bedroom door. I poke my head out, but Older Rachel's disappeared, probably to greet the new arrivals.

When I pull back, I motion for Rachel to follow me, and together the two of us slowly walk down the hall toward where I can hear hushed voices. We round the corner, and Rachel bumps into my back when I stop in my tracks.

Older Me has a young boy – no more than five – resting on her shoulders, and he has a solemn look on his face that I immediately recognize from my father. Rachel's poked her head around my shoulder, and she's just as frozen as I am.

"You said fifteen years, right?" she says in a small voice. I nod.

Oh my god, I have another kid.

/

I have a feeling I was in shock for a few minutes because the next thing I know, I'm sitting on the couch being gawked at by two children.

Alice's hair is the same shade of blonde that my sister's is, but her eyes are all mine. They're the same shape and the same mix of hazel as mine.

And Charlie. He has the same facial structure as Rachel. It's incredible, really, how much he looks like her. If he were female, I have no doubt he'd look almost exactly like her.

"Oh my god," I say, and I have a feeling it's not the first. Or fifth.

Older Me rubs the back of her neck with a sigh. "This wasn't the way I was hoping you would find out. I – we, I guess – forgot that you were going to leave the bedroom. But um, yeah, this is Alice Lucy and Charles Christopher Berry-Fabray."

Both Rachel and I are in shock, though I'm not sure if it's because of the fact that we have kids or because we're a _we_ in the first place.

"Now I'm sure I'm dreaming," I mutter. "I must be on some amazing pain medication because this is definitely the most detailed dream I've had about this."

Rachel whips around to look at me with wide eyes. "You've dreamed about this before?" she asks curiously, leaning toward me.

I swallow thickly. "Um, yes? Though like I said, nothing quite this detailed. And most of the time it's just us." I glanced at Charlie, who was sitting on the back of the couch fiddling his mom's hair. "No kids."

"Do you want me to punch you?" Older Me asks cheekily, and I glare at her across the coffee table.

"Is it really that hard to believe this is real?" Alice asks, wrinkling her nose in a decidedly Rachel-like fashion. Something in my chest twinges at the sight. "You kinda sound like Emma Swan."

While Rachel frowns in confusion, I turn a glare on my older self, who's suddenly not grinning now. "You let her watch _Once Upon a Time_?" I yell. "She's _eight_!"

Older Me throws up her hands. "It wasn't on purpose! We were in the living room because she was sick, and I thought she was asleep! Besides, we only watched the first few episodes, so she didn't see anything really awful!"

I glare at her, and both Alice and Charlie are trying their best not to laugh too loudly at their mom. Older Rachel, as well, is hiding her grin behind her coffee cup.

"Okay, homework time," Rachel says to save her wife, sweeping Charlie up off the couch and slinging him over her shoulder in a fireman's carry. Alice grins at me before scampering after her mother.

When they had disappeared, Older Me finally looked back at me and Rachel, a dopey grin spread across her face – ten bucks she'd been watching her wife's ass. "If it's any consolation, Regina's her favorite character so far."

I shake my head and try not to laugh. "Of course she is. She's _your_ daughter."

She grins.

/

Dinner and the rest of the night are rather uneventful, or, well, as uneventful as dinner with your future family _can_ be with Alice clinging to me like a koala and Charlie jabbering non-stop to Rachel, who's grinning every time I look at her.

Our older selves put the kids to sleep, which Rachel takes as an opportunity to finally speak with me in private. Of course, we just stare awkwardly at each other for a little while before she finally finds her voice.

"You've had dreams about us," she says, and it's not a question, thought it might be easier if it was. "Like, together."

I nod, avoiding looking at her.

She sits back and looks at me, head tilted to the side. Then she smiles and crawls over the couch to grab me in a tight hug. I sit in shock for a few seconds before I wrap my arms around her and bury my face in the crook of her neck.

"That's why you didn't want me to marry Finn," she says quietly, and I nod into her throat. "Oh, sweetie, I'm so sorry. If you'd have told me, I wouldn't have even considered it."

My body feels funny when she calls me sweetie, and I can't help but grin like a fool and squeeze her tighter.

/

I wake up the next morning to find my older self smiling at me. "I'm going for a run before work. There are clothes in the bathroom next door. Wake Rachel. I'll meet you downstairs."

And then she's gone before I can even have a coherent thought. I let out a garbled mess of a sentence and flop over onto my back.

Beside me, Rachel shifts and rests her head on my shoulder. I look at her for a minute before I realize that if Rachel doesn't go on this run, she'll blame me for her messed up schedule, so I gently shake her – then a little rougher – until she rouses. Deep sleeper, I note distractedly with a smile.

/

Older Rachel and the kids are up by the time we get back, though Charlie looks like he's about to fall asleep in his cereal. Rachel and I join them at the breakfast table, and twenty minutes later, Older Me bounces into the kitchen in a t-shirt, jeans, a pair of black converse, and a blazer. She kisses her wife and kids, ruffles my hair, and smiles at Rachel before disappearing out the front door.

"You know," I say to Older Rachel when the door clicks shut behind her. "When you told me I turned into House, I wasn't expecting to dress similarly."

She smirks at me. "I'm waiting on the motorcycle talk. And she does wear the coat, so that's a major difference." The smile softens into something warmer. "You told me after graduation that you like dressing like that."

I drop my gaze to my cereal and languidly swirl it around in my bowl, conscious of my Rachel watching me carefully. "According to Russel, the perfect Christian girl doesn't wear boy clothes," I finally say mockingly. "And while I don't miss the pink hair, the boots did grow on me."

Older Rachel's smile widens, and she claps me on the shoulder before beginning to herd the kids upstairs to get ready for school.

Beside me, my Rachel looks away when I glance at her and begins shoveling sugary cereal into her mouth.

/

The Rachels and I spend the day watching television, because Older Rachel doesn't want to tell us too much about the future lest we screw up the space-time continuum and going out in public would lead to some very awkward questions. However, throughout the day, I do find some pictures of the other Glee kids, and the definite highlight was seeing a picture of Santana and Brittany's wedding.

Older Me arrives home with two hours remaining on mine and Rachel's time, and the kids when there's just a half-hour left.

As our remaining time ticks away, I ask the question I've been dying to ask. "Are we going to remember this?" But our older selves just smile at us.

Alice and Charlie hug Rachel and I in turn.

With less than a minute remaining, our older selves shoo the kids to do their homework and after brief hugs, they leave, my older self's arm wrapped around her wife's shoulders and Rachel's head rested on hers.

"If we don't remember any of this," I say to my Rachel when they've left the room, she looks up at me with an expression that tells me she knows what I'm going to say, "I just want you to know I love you."

She smiles at me but doesn't say a word, just takes my hand and laces our fingers together.

/

My face scrunches up and I made a disgruntled noise as light seeps through my cracked eyelids; light should _not_ be this bright.

I hear a flurry of voices surrounding me, and my sluggish brain struggles to separate them. There's Santana, Brittany, Kurt, and my mom, plus a few I can't place.

With a great effort, I manage to open my eyes all the way, and the first thing I see are two chocolate ones looking right back at me.

Rachel.

There's pressure on my hand, and I squeeze back as much as my muscles will allow. They're screaming in protest, but I try to ignore them.

Rachel lifts her head where it had been resting on the mattress against my stomach, and she blinks a few times.

Then she smiles in that sleepy way she had when I'd woken her up so we could go running.

The meaning of the fact that I can actually compare the two hits me, and I grin back.

* * *

_If you read my Brittana Week day three entry, you would know I have a particular penchant for House M.D, more specifically for Quinn as House. It's still here._

_I imagine that Rachel wanted to name their boy Charles, but Quinn thought it sounded too old and argued against it. But then Rachel pouted, and Quinn relented with, "Fine, but we're calling him Charlie."_


End file.
